PicWay is coming to the App Store soon; it isn’t there yet. This page is about one part of the app: the photo grid, the screen you scroll, pinch and drag through most. Each card says what you see and feel, then why it matters to you.
What does scrolling feel like?
Cells show a picture even when the original is in iCloud
What it does. Even when a photo’s original lives only in iCloud (Optimize iPhone Storage is on), its cell rarely stays grey.
Why it works this way. You rarely wait on anything while you scroll a big library.
When you stop, soft cells turn sharp
What it does. When you stop to look, the cells on screen that are still soft turn sharp. If the original is in iCloud, it comes from your own iCloud down to this iPhone; PicWay has no server that receives your photos. In Low Power Mode, in Low Data Mode, or without a network, this doesn’t happen, and it does less when the phone is hot.
Why it works this way. Scrolling stays light, and the detail is there when you stop to look.
Cells don’t flicker while you scroll
What it does. A cell that already shows a picture doesn’t usually keep changing while you scroll. While the press-and-hold menu is open on a photo, that cell doesn’t change at all.
Why it works this way. Pictures changing under your eyes as you scroll are tiring to look at. This keeps the screen calm.
Cells are rarely grey
What it does. As you scroll, cells rarely show up grey, even in a fast flick.
Why it works this way. A fast flick stays smooth and easy on the battery.
After you pause, blank cells are rare
What it does. After you pause, when you scroll back to where you just were, cells rarely show blanks. When the phone is hot, this does less.
Why it works this way. You rarely have to scroll back over blank cells just to make them appear.
How does the grid stay quick and easy on the phone?
Scrolling back: the screen you just left is still there
What it does. When you scroll back, the screen you just looked at is right there.
Why it works this way. What matters is that the screen you return to is still there.
Zoomed in or out, it feels the same going back
What it does. Whether you are looking at a few big pictures or a dense grid of small ones, the screen you just left is still there when you scroll back.
Why it works this way. Going back feels the same at any zoom.
The grid goes easy on a warm phone
What it does. When your iPhone gets warm, the grid takes it easy.
Why it works this way. Not making the phone hotter is a rule the grid keeps.
What happens when I pinch?
Pinch to change columns, and the grid lands neatly
What it does. When you pinch, the cells grow or shrink smoothly. When you let go, the grid settles so the cells exactly fill the screen width.
Why it works this way. No half cell is left at the edge, so the grid always looks tidy.
No empty strip on the right edge while you pinch
What it does. However you pinch, the grid never leaves an empty strip on the right edge of the screen.
Why it works this way. The photos always reach the right edge.
A grid with few photos never has more columns than photos
What it does. An album with only a few photos can’t be zoomed out into a sea of mostly empty cells.
Why it works this way. More columns are for seeing more photos at once. When there are only a few, a denser grid would show nothing extra.
How do I scroll fast, and jump to a year or month?
A fixed-size knob on the right edge, instead of the thin system scroll bar
What it does. On the right edge of the grid there is a round knob with two arrows on it. Press and hold it to drag the grid quickly up and down. The knob is the same size no matter how many photos the grid holds.
Why it works this way. It stays the same size however long the grid is, and it never covers a big part of your photos.
The knob only appears while you scroll, then fades away
What it does. The knob appears when you scroll and fades away when you stop scrolling, so it doesn’t sit on top of your photos; while you hold and drag it, it stays. It stays hidden during a pinch.
Why it works this way. It is out of your way when you aren’t using it.
Drag the knob and years appear; pause on one and its months open
What it does. While you hold and drag the knob, year labels appear beside it. Pause on a year and it opens into its months. Drag to either end of the track and you are back to years.
Why it works this way. You can jump straight to the month you want.
When the months open, the knob stays under your finger
What it does. When the months open, the knob stays under your finger, with the current month right beside it.
Why it works this way. You can carry on dragging without losing the knob.
The year axis is only shown where the photos are in date order
What it does. The year and month axis appears in grids that run in date order. Where the order is something else, such as search results ordered by relevance or an album you sorted by hand, there is only the knob.
Why it works this way. In those grids the same month can show up in several places, so a label such as “2023” couldn’t say where 2023 starts. An axis that points at the wrong place is worse than none.
Which grids have the year axis
What it does. The year axis is switched on for grids such as the main photo library when it is in date order, the year and month pages, albums in date order, and search results in date order.
Why it works this way. An axis that would point at the wrong place stays off, so only the grids where it makes sense have it.
What is the date at the top of the screen while I scroll?
In the library, the date label hides when you sort by file size
What it does. While you scroll the library’s All view, a label at the top shows the dates of the photos on screen. When you sort by File size, the label isn’t shown at all. Year, month and album pages show it too.
Why it works this way. Sorted by size, neighbouring photos have nothing to do with each other in time, so the range would be some huge span on almost every row. That is worse than a blank, because you would think you had scrolled far back in time.
A date label that doesn’t fit gets shorter, and is never cut off with “…”
What it does. When a date range doesn’t fit, the label shows a shorter form, such as months instead of days, and never ends in “…”.
Why it works this way. A half-cut range is harder to read than a complete one in a shorter form.
While you pinch, the date label stays away until things settle
What it does. While you pinch, the date label at the top stays hidden. It comes back once the pinch settles.
Why it works this way. The text doesn’t jump around while the columns change.
More about PicWay
This page covers the grid. All PicWay details has the other parts of the app, and these guides are about the same area:
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